O Death, Where Is Your Sting?
Tom Shrader concludes his exposition of 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter, by walking through Paul's teaching that the perishable body will be transformed instantaneously into an imperishable, glorified body at the last trumpet. Drawing also on Acts 17 and 1 Thessalonians 4, he emphasizes that the resurrection of Jesus is the core message Christians must proclaim to a lost world, not merely personal stories of meaning or peace. The teaching closes with a pastoral challenge drawn from verse 58: because resurrection is certain, believers are to be steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in the Lord's work, never treating retirement or comfort as the goal of the Christian life.
“If you are a Christian today, I can guarantee you based on God's Word that you are as certain of heaven as the saints that are already there.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Corinthians
Recorded: 2002 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 19 min
Themes: resurrection, death, eternal life, evangelism, perseverance, hope, gospel, purpose, facing death, grieving a loved one, feeling purposeless, new believer, parent, retiree, struggling with doubt, young adult
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 1 Corinthians 15:5-8, 1 Corinthians 15:12, 1 Corinthians 15:20, 1 Corinthians 15:35, 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 1 Corinthians 15:50-58, Acts 17:16-34, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, Hebrews 2:14, Romans 6:9, Galatians 3:13
Theological Themes: bodily resurrection, eschatology, glorified body, justification, proclamation, parousia, last trumpet, soteriology
Full Transcript
The Resurrection: Foundation of the Faith
Open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. We will finish this chapter today. We have referred to it as the resurrection chapter, and when we do that, I think there is a tendency to say, "Well, this is about Jesus' resurrection." Indeed it is about Jesus' resurrection. Jesus' resurrection is not just important to the Christian faith — it is essential to the Christian faith. If there is no resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, then our faith is absolutely in vain, our preaching is a waste, and all of our adherence to it is a total waste.
When we talk about the resurrection, yes, it is His resurrection, but it is our resurrection as well. If you look at verse 12, Paul is really taking this whole chapter to address a misunderstanding in the church at Corinth. They got the first part — they understood that Jesus rose from the dead — but they were confused about the second part: what happens to us when we die. This is very similar to the issue Paul seems to address in the church at Thessalonica.
As you know, we are taking Paul's epistles in chronological order, and it could be that in this very early period of his teaching, this was an issue the churches came back to again and again. The question was: what happens to us when we die? Paul says, as he answers that question, he wants us to understand a couple of things.
The Gospel and the Eyewitnesses
In verses 3 and 4, Paul gives us the gospel: that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again. Then beginning in verse 5, Paul talks about eyewitnesses — Peter, the twelve, James, five hundred, and then Paul himself. Paul says it this way in verse 8: "For last of all he appeared to one untimely born, he appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, I am not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church. But by the grace of God I am what I am."
That passage is very important in this sense: if your conversion is not substantially the same as the Apostle Paul's, I do not believe you have been converted at all. Obviously the circumstances are different, but I mean substantially the same. If you have not come to the point where you realize how desperate, helpless, hopeless, and wicked you are — if you have not seen yourself as a sinner, someone who literally shakes their fist in the face of God — then you have not truly come to faith.
Sometimes our rebellion is so sophisticated and subtle that we may outwardly look fine, but inwardly we stand defiantly before God. We see this often with junior high and high school students. Parents, be very careful. You may have a morally compliant child, but do not for a second confuse that with a redeemed or converted child. A child may be morally compliant under your authority out of fear, respect, or whatever it might be, but that is not conversion.
Until I have come to the point where I am broken over my sin and I grab Christ and Christ alone, I am not a Christian. It is at that moment that I move from sinner to saint. All of this is built around the resurrection.
Paul at Athens: A Model for Evangelism
I want to take a short excursion into the book of Acts to help you see how important this resurrection really is. Turn to Acts chapter 17, verse 16. This passage is fresh in my mind because I was invited last Monday to speak at Southwestern College, where I speak once a year in chapel. This year they had a theme and a passage for the year. The theme was "Caring Enough to Confront the World," and the passage was Acts chapter 17, verses 16 through 34 — Paul at Athens.
Because that was all the information I had, I knew that dozens of others had spoken there before me with that same theme and passage. I assumed it had been taught every way it reasonably could be. So I tried to look at it fresh. I was reminded that I used to teach a lesson from this passage. It is a great passage on evangelism, and it captures the motive for evangelism right there in verse 16.
Paul is in Athens, waiting for Silas and Timothy, and his spirit is provoked within him as he beholds a city full of idols. Paul is walking through the city, seeing how lost the people are, and he cannot stay quiet. My question to you is: are you that way?
The Exercise of Seeing the Lost
Here is an exercise I have asked some people at Priority Living to do during the week. Go into the office, or go to the club and walk by the lockers with the names on them, and try to figure out how many of those people are going to heaven. The exercise is very revealing, because it tends to go something like this: hell, hell, hell, hell, heaven, hell, heaven, hell, hell, heaven, heaven. You see what I am saying?
The question then is this: you are working alongside these people, they are heading toward eternity without Christ, and what have you done to share your faith with them? You can do the same exercise at the club, at a family reunion, or anywhere you gather with friends. What is striking about Paul is that these are people he does not even know, and he cannot stay quiet. So why are we so quiet?
I think there are two reasons. Number one, we are afraid. If I share my faith, what are they going to think?
The Resurrection as Our Core Message
People around you are going to hell, and we don't care. I say that to your shame, my shame, our shame. Paul sees this, and he can't keep quiet. He begins to talk to the philosophers — the Stoics and the Epicureans in verse 18 — and they are befuddled by him. They call him a babbler because, as we see at the end of verse 18, he is preaching Jesus and the resurrection.
They want to hear more, so they take him up to the wise men of Athens, and Paul has an opportunity to speak to this elite group. Beginning in verse 22, he said, "Men of Athens, I observe you are very religious in all respects. While I was passing through and examining the objects of worship, I found an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown God.'" We are told that at this point in time in the city of Athens there were as many as 30,000 gods being worshipped. One historian said it was easier to find a god in Athens than a man.
Paul understands the culture, and he understands that if he is going to connect and relate to these people, he has to understand where they live. He says, in effect, "You are religious — we have that figured out. You have 30,000 gods you are worshipping. But I saw one that really caught my attention: that unknown God. That is the God I want to talk about, because what you have worshipped in ignorance, I want to inform you about Him."
Look at how he summarizes his teaching in verse 31: "He fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." Whether speaking to the Epicureans and Stoics or to the men of Athens, Paul's message is consistent — Jesus, the resurrection, and the God who raised Him from the dead.
Then the people respond, and Luke tells us exactly what they respond to. Look at verse 32: "When they had heard of the resurrection of the dead" — that is what triggers the reaction. Some sneered, others said come back another time, and some believed. Those are essentially the three reactions you will always get. But here is what I don't want you to miss: when Paul had an opportunity to share his faith, what he spoke about was the resurrection.
What We Actually Have to Say to the World
So often when we talk about our faith, or share our testimony, or describe what God is doing in our lives, we say things like, "I was in business and I was successful but I was empty," or "I was at a hard point in my life and I reached out and God gave me peace." Those things may be true, but the message we have for the world is not primarily a message of meaning in the midst of success or peace in the midst of hardship. Paul doesn't lead with that.
When Paul has the opportunity, he speaks about Jesus Christ — Christ crucified and Christ raised from the dead. Go back and look at Acts chapters 2, 3, and 4: when Peter speaks, his whole message is Jesus crucified, Jesus buried, Jesus risen from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is important for a variety of reasons. It is where we find our life, but it is also the very essence of the message we carry. We don't have much to talk about if Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead — and if He did rise from the dead, that is given as conclusive evidence of who He is. When we have the opportunity to share our faith, we ought to be talking about Jesus' resurrection.
Christ the Firstfruits, and Our Resurrection to Follow
Back in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 20: "Now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep." In other words, Christ was first, and because of that there will be others — there will be us. Jesus' resurrection is really our message to the world, but it is also the foundation for our own resurrection. Jesus was the first; there will be others who follow.
Then in verse 35, some will ask, "How are the dead raised?" and others will ask, "With what kind of body do they come?" Paul answers in verse 42: "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body. Sown in dishonor, raised in glory. Sown in weakness, raised in power. Sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body." This contrast between our earthly body and our glorified body becomes the central point of what we are looking at today.
Four Contrasts Between Our Earthly and Glorified Bodies
Paul lays out four ways our present body contrasts with the resurrection body. First, this body is perishable — it is decaying. Even an infant just four or five months old is, in a sense, already moving toward death. We exchange that perishable body for an imperishable one. We have this earth suit that is perfectly adapted to this world, but it does not work in the eternal world; we will need an imperishable body for that.
Second, this body is sown in dishonor and sin, but we are raised in glory. Third, we are weak here. Take the strongest person in the world, and at some point that body deteriorates and ultimately dies. It is sown in weakness, but it is raised in power. We don't know exactly what that means in full, but we do know this —
Flesh and Blood Cannot Inherit the Kingdom
In heaven, we will never say that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. That will not happen in heaven. This is a natural body; that is a spiritual body. That brings us exactly to where we left off, verse 50: "Now I say to you, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable."
The point again is this: this perishable body cannot make the transition to heaven. Even Jesus — Hebrews 2:14 says Jesus was flesh and blood — even Jesus, to make the transition from this life to eternity, needed a glorified body to do so. One author writes that this may sound like a lot of theological language, but what Paul is saying is very practical. He is saying there is no way to achieve enduring value in God's eyes by utilizing your natural, normal human resources. That is what flesh and blood means.
It sounds strange, but what Paul is saying is this: nothing that wins the approval or the applause of men has any value at all in the sight of God. There is a real paradox there, and it is one of the main obstacles to living a life that is effective for the Lord Jesus. The things that this world values and calls significant typically have no or little eternal value.
The Green Jacket Illustration
Right now there are men who would literally give — who have given — their life to win the Masters green jacket. Gary Player was the first foreign player to win at Augusta, and as they discussed this week, when you win the green jacket, you leave it in your locker and it is there when you come back every year. Player, not knowing that, simply took it home to South Africa. Cliff Roberts called and asked where the green jacket was. Player said he had it right there, Roberts said to bring it back, and Player said, "Well, why don't you come and get it?" He simply kept it.
To this day, Gary Player has that green jacket. It sits in a plastic cover in his closet, and his son says that periodically he will take it out and look at it. Player is going to die before too long, and who knows what will happen to the green jacket after that — if it is like other things, the children will fight over it. But what strikes me is this: here is this thing he devoted his life to winning, and what does he do with it? He puts it in the closet and looks at it once in a while. The things that we value so much here simply do not make it into eternity.
Athletics and the Endless Pursuit of More
Athletics is a great illustration of this. Take baseball. When you are a little kid playing Little League, you are dreaming big. I used to spend hours in the alley throwing a ball off the wall, catching it, scooping up grounders, firing to first base, and announcing, "We got Mickey Mantle — two out." I would play out there by myself for hours.
And I thought, if I can just get to Pony League. Then Colt League. Then high school. Then college — not just any college, but a baseball school like ASU. Then just sign a contract, even if it does not matter, just to say I played pro ball. But then it is not enough just to play; I need to start. And if I am starting, USA Today is going to publish all the salaries, so I cannot just have a salary — I need a top salary. There is no end to it.
You can pick your sport or pick your business; it is the same thing. None of that provides you meaning. It may provide a free education or a livelihood, but it is not going to provide you meaning. Flesh and blood is not going to get it done. Flesh and blood very rarely values the things that God values.
The Mystery Paul Reveals
So Paul says in verse 51: "Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed — in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed."
A mystery, in the biblical sense, is not an Agatha Christie or Columbo type of thing. A mystery is something that was hidden and is now revealed — something that will never be ascertained through human wisdom or human understanding. No matter how much scientific investigation or research one does, this cannot be figured out on our own. It is something that God has hidden and has now, in His divine providence, decided to reveal.
And here is the mystery: we are not all going to sleep, but we will all be changed. That word "sleep" is a euphemism for death. Paul is saying not all of us will die, but all of us will be changed. How? When? Verse 52 tells us: in a moment — the smallest amount of time you can imagine. The Greek word is the term from which we get the English word "atom." In that tiny amount of time, in the twinkling of an eye, just like that —
The Instantaneous Transformation
This change is not a process. It is not a metamorphosis. It is an instantaneous change. We move from perishable to imperishable, from dishonor to glory, from weakness to power, from natural to spiritual. It is going to happen in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the trumpet's sound, and the dead will be raised. The dead that were sown perishable will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
I feel like for the last four or five weeks I have been saying the same thing every week, and I have, but it is in the text. I presume that if Paul says it this way, it is because we need to understand it. We need to come face to face with it. He is going to tell us why in a moment.
Returning to 1 Thessalonians 4
Does Paul talk about this moment and this twinkling anywhere else? He does. In a passage we have visited several times, we are going to go there one more time, and then I promise we will not be there again for a while. First Thessalonians chapter 4, beginning in verse 13, Paul said, "We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as do those who have no hope." This is the same idea — what happens to us when we die? He is saying we want you to get this, we want you to understand this, we do not want you to grieve like the rest of the world.
Two Very Different Funerals
Gary and I have done three funerals in the last ten or eleven days, and they are very different from some funerals I have done in the past. Years ago I got a call from a friend who said he had a buddy who was not a Christian, whose father — also not a Christian — had died, and he asked if I would do the funeral. I said no. He asked me to do it as a favor, and so I agreed.
I met with the family and they were very nice people, but they were lost, not believers at all. They asked if people could share memories about the man — we will call him Bill. One person stood up and said Bill was a great neighbor who planted flowers every spring and kept his lawn perfectly manicured. Another said Bill was his uncle who would have the family over once a quarter for a barbecue and always had chocolate ice cream. Someone else mentioned that Bill once gave him a ride to the bus depot when he had a flat tire.
It was just as empty as it could be. It was just sad. What was obvious was that Bill was in hell, because there was not a remnant of anything spiritual in his life.
Grief With Hope
Contrast that with the funerals we have had recently, where people stand up and say, "He was a great neighbor, and let me tell you why — because once I mentioned that his house looked great and he said, 'Everything I do, I do for the glory of God.' He talked to me about Jesus, and we had been in a Bible study together for five years." You contrast those two events, and one is so empty.
Both grieve. What Paul is saying is that if your mom dies, your dad dies, your spouse dies, your child dies — people you love die — you are going to grieve. If you do not grieve, something is wrong with you. But we grieve with hope. Not just positive thinking — we have the hope, the certainty, that one day we will be with Christ forever. That is what Paul begins to talk about here.
Verse 14: "We believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord" — we are not making this up — "we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep." There is the mystery: not everybody is going to die, but everybody will be changed.
The Descent of the Lord
Here is how it happens. First Thessalonians 4:16: "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first."
There is a story of a Civil War chaplain who, after one battle, found that the men had fought to exhaustion and could not even make it back to camp. They simply gathered together and lay down and went to sleep. During the night a blanket of fresh snow fell — a couple of inches — and the men never moved. The chaplain was first up the next morning, and at reveille he looked around and saw those men begin to move, come up out of the snow, and shake it off. He said he immediately thought of 1 Thessalonians 4:16 — that there will be that blast, and out we come.
Then verse 17: "Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Him in the air, and thus we shall be with the Lord forever. Therefore comfort one another with these words." That is meant to comfort us.
Death Swallowed Up in Victory
Paul makes the point again in verse 53: this perishable must — it has to — put on the imperishable. The word used is the word for putting on your clothes. The mortal has to put on the immortal. Verse 54: "But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on the immortal, then will come about the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'"
When I look at this and see death, there may be an illusion that somehow death has won. But all at once, at this moment of glorious resurrection, I understand —
Victory Over Death
The victory is for those of us who are in Christ — death no longer controls us. That is what Paul says in Romans chapter 6, verse 9: death no longer is master over Christ, and therefore is not master over us. When Jesus rose from the dead, He ended the grip that death held on us. "Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?"
Paul returns to this in verse 56: "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law." There is a sting in death, and that image is worth sitting with for a moment.
The Bee and the Stinger
I am the oldest of four boys — the shortest, the fattest, and the smartest of the four. I used to invent games we could play, and one of them involved the clover that grew all over our yard, those white or bluish-purple flowers that bees loved to gather around. I told the boys, let's see who can catch a bee and hold it the longest, and the youngest would go first. We went back and forth, nobody wanting to be first, until finally I came up with a strategy.
My strategy was this: catch the bee and immediately start shaking it. He would be disoriented and confused, and I could hold on for a while and then let it go. That makes sense in theory. Unfortunately, the bee I caught had apparently taken its Dramamine for the day and was not disoriented at all. I grabbed that bee and started to shake it, and it left its stinger right in my finger — I can point to the exact spot. It was the first time I had ever been stung.
The bee left, but as you well know, the stinger stayed behind. My finger swelled up and was so sore that I could barely throw a baseball. Cut me a little slack on the metaphor here, but the stinger is in the cross. Death left its sting in the cross. There is no stinger in us anymore.
Freed from the Curse
Christ died and paid the price for sin. While we still live in many ways with the consequence of sin — still in this flesh, still struggling and battling in a fallen world — the sting itself has been removed. We can send diplomats anywhere in the world, and even if we fix things in one place, we will not have lasting peace. There has not been one day of complete peace on this planet, and there will not be, not because we lack good diplomats, but because we live in a fallen world.
But we are talking about the individual now. We are talking about the reality of heaven. Paul says the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is in the law — and here is what we know about that. Galatians 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become the curse for us." We now as Christians know that heaven is our future, and that is certain. We know that we have the power in this life to not sin anymore, and that we do not have to live enslaved to the pride and arrogance this life breeds in our hearts. We have been freed from that.
Certain of Heaven
If you are a Christian today, I can guarantee you, based on God's Word, that you are as certain of heaven as the saints who are already there. It is a promise. That is your future. That is where you are headed. But before you get excited about that and think you are something special, you had better remember verse 57: "But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." It is all of Him. He did the work.
For 57 verses, Paul has laid out the gospel: Jesus died for our sins, He was buried, He was raised again, and there are eyewitnesses to this — Paul himself said, "I saw it." He tells us we will be raised. Imagine for a moment if Jesus had not been raised from the dead — then our preaching is a waste, your faith is a waste, we are lying, we are to be pitied, and we remain in our sin. Those who have died would be lost forever. But Christ was raised from the dead, the firstfruits, and you will be also. The perishable will become imperishable, the dishonorable will become glorified, the weak will become strong, the natural will become spiritual. All of this will take place. For 57 verses, Paul tells us the same thing again and again.
So What? The Call to Action
But what I want to know is: so what? What does that mean to me here, right now? It is very valuable to know that heaven is there, but what about me here now? Verse 58 gives the conclusion: "Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."
Steadfast carries the idea of being seated or settled. Immovable means it cannot be moved — totally motionless. This pulpit, in a sense, is steadfast — it is pretty settled — but it is not immovable. If I were to fix it to this platform, it would become immovable. Paul says that is how he wants us to be, and he wants us to be that way while overflowing in good works.
Understand this: if God wanted simply to get you to heaven, He would have already taken you there. He left you here for a reason, and you are never, never, never done with that. One author puts it this way: "What a word Paul gives to the countless Christians who work and pray and give and suffer as little as they can. How can we be satisfied with the trivial, insignificant, short-lived things of this world? How can we say 'take it easy' when so many around us are dead spiritually, and so many fellow believers are in need of edification and encouragement and help of every sort? When can a Christian say, 'I've served my time, I've done my part, let others —'"
Living for God in Every Season of Life
Is there ever a time when we should stop doing God's work? The answer is never. It is okay to relax, and it is fair to recreate, but all for a purpose — never to stop.
Years ago, Susan and I were invited to speak to a Sunday school class for those fifty-five and older. They called, and I said I wasn't sure Susan would do it, since she had never spoken in public before. I went to her and asked if she wanted to, and she said yes. The week before, we went in to get the lay of the land, walking around and talking to people. Typically when we come into a room, she goes one way and I go the other, and I watched her working the room from across the way.
When we were done, I asked again if she was sure she wanted to do this, and she said yes. The Saturday before the Sunday we were supposed to speak, I laid out the plan: I would go in, do the introduction, set everything up, she would do her part, and then I would come in and wrap it up. She agreed. So I went in and did my introduction, explaining that Susan had never done this before but had been asked to speak — I did everything but say outright, "Cut her slack, be nice, clap at the end."
Susan came to the platform, set her Bible down, and it was like she took no prisoners. She looked completely comfortable. She said, "Gentlemen, you don't even have to listen. I just want to talk to the ladies, and I won't take the full five minutes." She told them she had been in the week before, had the chance to walk around and meet so many of them, and had heard them talking about taking cruises, getting a place in the mountains, living five or six months here and five or six months there, going to see the grandkids and giving them back. And she said she had heard several of them say, "I've done all my stuff — I now want to live for me." She looked at them and said, "You are godly women, so I'm sure you can do this. Give me one verse in here where it says it's time to live for you." Then she said, "Thank you for having me," and sat down.
I stood up and said, "That's why we don't let her speak in public very often — she has now offended all of you." But it is a great message, and as we get older, it is a message that needs to be preached more and more.
The Example of Faithful Labor
Jerry Smith has done a magnificent job. He has quit working for pay — he has retired, though he doesn't care for that word — but I have never seen him work harder, because he understands this truth. He is a great example of what it looks like to stop working for wages while continuing to abound in the work of the Lord.
I know an alarming number of people in their mid-to-late thirties who are looking to retire at forty-five to go do whatever they want to do. That is an anti-biblical, anti-Christian way of thinking — unless what they want to do is to devote themselves totally to the Lord. Too often it becomes a matter of putting together everything one wants to do — jet skiing, golfing, all of it — and giving God whatever time is left.
Paul is telling us that we are going to rise from the dead and be with Him, and that truth ought to make us immovable and steadfast — abounding, overflowing, exceeding every requirement, overdoing our work for the Lord.
All the Days of My Life
Consider the words of the last song sung before communion, titled *All the Days of My Life*:
*Proclaim your awesome power, tell your mighty deeds, declare your future kingdom of everlasting peace. All the days of my life I'll sing of your greatness, all the days of my life I'll speak of your grace, all the days of my life I'll tell of your wondrous love — your love in my life, your love. All your works will praise you, your children bless your name, will speak of all your goodness, we walk in fields of grace. All the days of my life I'll sing of your greatness, all the days of my life I'll speak of your grace, all the days of my life I'll tell of your wondrous love — your love in my life, your love.*
That is why He left us here. That is why He tells us what this resurrection is going to be. That is why He gives us this prophecy — so that we are motivated and know how to live in this life until that day comes. Until then, we are steadfast, immovable, and working for Him. What that means, simply, is being obedient and doing whatever it is God tells us to do.
Father, we pray that all of our lives would be like that — that all of our lives we would indeed be steadfast, immovable, abounding in Your work, knowing that what we do is not in vain. Father, this is our prayer of thanksgiving to You for the victory You gave us through Your Son, Jesus Christ. It is in His name that we pray. Amen.